Sunday, March 17, 2013

Editorial: Iraq ignored by the media

Human Rights Watch is calling for  an investigation into the March 8th assault on protesters in Mosul.  This follows their call last month for an investigation into the January 25th assault on protesters in Falluja.


There has been no investigation into either.  In both cases, Prime Minister and Chief Thug Nouri al-Maliki's forces assaulted protesters.  There has been no condemnation of Nouri from the White House for these assaults.

Amnesty International issued a report  [PDF format warning] "Iraq: A Decade of Abuses" last week and how the media rushed to avoid it.

That's The New York Times, The Washington Post, CBS Evening News, ABC World News, Democracy Now!, The Progressive, In These Times, Z-Net, The Nation, . . .


They didn't care enough to cover it.

Like the ongoing protests which they ignore with very few exceptions.


mosul


That's a screen snap of Mosul last Friday from a video posted by Iraqi Spring MC.



Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (Guardian) reflected on the protests:


Every Friday, thousands of peaceful demonstrators have poured into the streets of Ramadi, Mosul and Falluja mimicking the Arab spring protests elsewhere in the region.
In Mosul and Falluja, tent cities have sprung up in public squares. Some have even demonstrated in Sunni areas of Baghdad, braving the draconian Friday security measures imposed on them.

 Since December, these protests have been going on.  Some estimates have 10% of the population participating.  And yet the media ignores them over and over.


Remember Egypt?  How you couldn't get away from it on your television?

Try finding what's happening in Iraq on your TV.


Iraq was important enough to invade, it was important enough to drop bombs on, it was important enough to destroy.  But now the same media that once sold the illegal war wants nothing to do with Iraq.  They avoid it like the criminals they are, afraid to return to the scene of their crime.